This invention relates in general to refuse collection and transport vehicles, and more particularly to an improved refuse loading apparatus, including means for controlling the movement of the apparatus, in such vehicles.
Apparatus for loading refuse and garbage into the body of a refuse collecting and transporting vehicle generally employ a hopper attached to the rear of the body into which refuse is dumped by hand. A packer plate is mounted in the hopper so as to move cyclically through it to compact and push refuse placed therein forward from the hopper toward the front of the vehicle body. The hopper is typically formed by a pair spaced-apart side plates and a contoured bottom plate. The packer plate is typically mounted within the hopper by connecting linkage and driven over an operating path by means of a hydraulic actuator system which may include one or more pairs of hydraulic cylinders.
Heretofore, in performing the packing operation, the bottom edge of the packer plate has been guided in close association with the bottom of the hopper during the packing portion of its operating cycle by means of cams or bearing surfaces mounted on the sides of the packer plate, and by opposed guide channels or cam tracks provided on the inside surfaces of the side plates of the hopper housing in which the cams ride. Such apparatus is shown and described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,653,522; 3,739,927; and 3,874,529; by me and assigned to the assignee of the present application. Use of such guide channels or cam tracks require the packer plate to travel along a rigidly defined operating path which sweeps from the back of the hopper to the front in close proximity to the floor of the hopper. Problems may occur with the packer plate when refuse or garbage becomes an obstruction which does not fit entirely into the hopper or which when positioned in the hopper cannot be moved into the vehicle body by the normal operating sweep of the packer plate. This problem is especially significant when the operation of the packer plate is controlled by automatic apparatus, typically including hydraulic circuitry. Either complex overload compensating circuitry has been utilized, or additional circuitry for manual operation must be provided to retract the packer plate to a position where operators may remove the obstruction from the hopper.